Ban luxurious medical treatment to higher authorities at public cost
Persons seated in high posts enjoy luxurious medical treatments in private hospitals in India and abroad. When the system cannot provide such luxury to normal citizens at public cost, persons seated on high posts in the legislature, judiciary or bureaucracy must not also have any such entitlement. This privilege is available only to such a privileged class. However, they should be given priority treatment in private wards of government hospitals. A beginning can be made by banning medical treatment in foreign countries at public cost. Another option can be to provide Mediclaim policies for families to entitled ones with premium paid by concerned governments and public authorities.
Medical reimbursement at the public cost must be compulsorily put on respective public authorities. There may be legislation in this regard because the Supreme Court turned down CIC verdict allowing disclosure of amounts of annual medical reimbursements claimed by individual judges of the Supreme Court. Some MLAs have claimed medical reimbursements in tunes of crores of rupees each.
Subhash Chandra Agrawal
Beg to differ with Sunil Gavaskar!
Beg to differ with Little Master Sunil Gavaskar when he says that Pandya-Rahul episode has taken the sheen off India’s unprecedented Test series win in Australia. The episode involving Pandya and KL Rahul of unsavoury remarks on a TV show has been blown out of proportion. Both got the punishment they deserved as they have been suspended from playing till pending enquiry which anyways one thought was harsh. Both are young cricketers who bragged on an ‘Idiotic’ show of an action they may never have committed.
Our Test series win in Australia was history in the making which cannot be changed and Kohli’s Team is proud of that win notwithstanding the current controversy. The cricket Board sent a strong message by suspending erring cricketers (that too what they did in their personal lives) and the matter should end there. Hope better sense prevails and both Pandya and Rahul are reinstated in the team after an apology from them!
S.N.Kabra
Karnataka drama once again!
It refers to unholy political drama once again erupted in Karnataka where again huge money is being spent on saving or uprooting state government by taking MLAs in hiding in costly resorts far away from the state. Evidently, such heavy spent of money for political games is to be recovered indirectly from the public through bribes and corruption involving those seated at high posts of the legislature. There must be a mechanism to permanently end such nuisance.
Chief Ministers should be elected by secret and compulsory votes of all MLAs through EVMs on nominations filed by at least 34 per cent MLAs. Members not participating in such election may lose voting right in state assembly though retaining membership. Any such elected Chief Minister may only be removed by the same process but with the compulsion of naming an alternate leader in the same motion. It will be simply a modified version of Supreme Court verdict in the matter UP government (Kalyan Singh) vs Jagdamba Pal where Chief Minister was elected through a secret vote of MLAs for the only time in the history of India.
Such an elected Chief Minister will be compelled to have cordial relations with opposition in running the House proceedings, and also tackling factionalism in ruling parties apart from ensuring full terms and stable governments.
Madhu Agrawal
Staggered working hours
Mumbai peak hour rush and traffic congestion all make Mumbai most life most miserable in all respect. It is high time to stagger the working hours so that we can see some free movement during busy hours. In the past when the population was not much, we followed a staggering time for offices in focal points like Fort area and that was a success. Why don’t we follow the same system in the public interest and make sure the commuters get some reprieve? Morning hour train rush and getting other transport after getting down all become chaotic if all the offices function at the same time. A better council should prevail in bringing about a change in the event of a bus strike or disruption of the local train due to some rail fracture, overhead wire disruption. It is a good thought to stagger the timings.
Jayanthi Anandambal Maniam
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
